As with wine, its sibling in fermentation, there was a time when beer was commonly made, transported, stored and served in wooden casks and barrels. These containers were generally sealed with pitch or resin, making them impervious to leakage, and also preventing the beer from picking up any flavours from the wood.

Or that was the intention, at least. Well-sealed or not, it’s quite likely that beers stored for longer periods of time and/or in volatile conditions, such as the India Pale Ales that spent months travelling the rough seas from Britain to India, probably obtained flavours and other characteristics from the wooden container, even if the brewer didn’t intend it.

In more modern times, these wooden containers have been replaced with metal, making it easier for beer to be produced in large batches that are consistent, with no chance of the wood (or the bacteria that can live in it) imparting any flavours - good, bad, or otherwise - into the beer. This is great for mass producers like Molson and Labatt, and any other brewer big or small that wants consistency in their beer, which is generally most of them.

In the last few years, though, a number of breweries have started experimenting with wooden barrels, using them not just as a place to store the beer, but also as a medium to alter the beer’s flavour. In the UK, Innis & Gunn have been at the forefront of this trend with their popular oak-aged ales, while in the US, playing with barrels has become so prevalent amongst craft brewers that wood-aged beer has been added as an official category in the style guidelines of the Beer Judge Certification Program.

In Ontario, barrel-aged beer is still a rarity, with just a couple of breweries attempting it, and generally only in small, one-off batches for festivals or other special events. Perhaps the first Ontario brewery to take things a step further is Oakville’s Trafalgar Brewery, who have released their Oak-Aged Rye ale in bottles and made them available as part of the LCBO’s Spring seasonal beer release (LCBO 67173 - $3.95/650 mL).

Making this beer doubly unique is the use of rye in the recipe, replacing some of the barley malt more typical in beer making. Known in their birthplace of Germany as Roggenbier, these beers often have a flavour similar to rye or pumpernickel bread, with the intensity varying depending on the percentage of rye used and other factors.

In Trafalgar’s version, the rye influence is mild, but still noticeable. Pouring a reddish-golden colour with a small white head, it has a faint rye bread aroma, pumped up a bit with notes of vanilla and wood from the oak aging. The flavour isn’t as complex or aggressive as other oak-aged beers tend to be, but is still pleasant, with the rye and wood notes combining to become slightly reminiscent of rye whiskey, albeit in a watered-down form.

Those going in expecting the warm booziness of Innis & Gunn or the over the top flavours of a typical American barrel-aged beer may be disappointed by this one. But for a pleasant ale with a subtle edginess, Trafalgar Oak-Aged Rye does the job.